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Puma, the German sports shoe maker (I'm sorry, I meant "Sportslifestyle company"),has just published an Environmental Profit & Loss report, making it perhaps the first firm to quantify the environmental impacts of its products. Brief analyses of this event are available here and here.

Dear readers, I am announcing my candidacy for the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the United States. Any questions?Q: Who the hell are you?A: I’m a middle-aged white guy with a wife, two kids, a dog, and a house with a white picket fence. (Seriously!) I have a birth certificate showing I was born in the USA, and I meet the height requirement.Q: Okay, but how about a name? A picture?D: If there’s one thing I’ve learned from reality shows, it’s that Americans love the “big reveal.” They’ll get it at the inauguration.

For the last couple of weeks I've been acting cynical and complaining about our cult of excess information when what we need is access to information in a way that's sustainable and not quite as likely as the current state of affairs to make my head explode.

Yesterday I met a wonderful group of people at Loyola in Baltimore at the invitation of my friend Luise Finn, CIO. The subject was literacy in the digital age. The talk is too long for a single post here, so I am going to post it as a serial. Here is the introduction. See you soon for more!
“It Takes Only a Generation:”
Information Literacy in the Digital Age

Ask an Argentine scholar about the University of Buenos Aires and there is usually a long pause. And maybe a deep breath. And then everyone has a lot to say. The University of Buenos Aires (or UBA is it is usually called) is one of the oldest universities in Argentina. With more than 300,000 students enrolled, it is also one of the largest universities in the hemisphere, comparable only to the UNAM in Mexico. The UBA is public, tuition free and enrolls any high school graduate wishing to pursue a university degree.

An occasional correspondent writes:I have to write a letter from the employer perspective to the local community college president asking that he keep open a program that supports my business, despite the relatively high cost of the program. What arguments could employers make that would make you more likely to keep an expensive program open?A history of hiring your graduates?Demonstrated demand for enrollment?Offering cash and supplies to help the program continue?Any other ideas?Oooh, I like this question.

I meant to write this blog post last week. I sat down to do it, and an hour later had only written and deleted the same paragraph three or four times. So I gave up. I set aside a block of time each week for this work, and if I can’t get it done in that time, I can’t do it. (Thankfully, Scott Jaschik is very understanding.)

Okay, this probably wouldn’t be it. But if I had a short list, this would be on it.I would ban the “Appeal to Authority” as a rhetorical move on campus.The “Appeal to Authority” uses the status or stature of someone who holds a position as evidence for the position. It’s fairly common in advertising, where it often takes the form of the celebrity endorsement. Logicians classify it as a fallacy, which is technically correct, but it survives anyway.